I was around as a student in 1992 when our previous, presidentially-blessed effort, the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) died. SEI did not die a death like a car wreck, it died a slow-motion death, where the inevitably tragic outcome was known by all a priori and no one felt compelled or empowered to intervene. By 1993 the new president and his administration pulled the plug only a short time later, the SEI patient wasn't conscious enough to realize it or even care anymore.

In stark contrast to every serious study by NASA for the previous 40 years, the final SEI architecture, called the First Lunar Outpost, did not even have a final report that we can pore over today and dream of what might have been. This death by obscurity is the same death that the current vision (VSE) is facing, too.

Is he right?
Is VSE doomed to the death of a thousand cuts?
Dennis calls for a palace revolution. A sea change within NASA.
A call to arms that will grab the slothful masses by the short and curlies and inspire a new beginning. A new awakening. A glorious march to the new frountier that is space.

But is it possible?
Can it happen?
Or do we have to wait ten years till the Chinese land on the moon?